


Quality Hooch

by ponchard



Series: More Dalish Tales [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: (technically twin soul rivalry), Abuse of Stealth, Brotherly Affection, Brothers, Dagger Rogues Are Best And No One Can Tell Me Otherwise, Daggers, Dalish, Dalish Mistellings, Death, Elves, Elvhen Pantheon, Extreme Abuse of Stealth, Flank Attack, Gen, Gods, Hooch - Freeform, Knives, Liquor, Mighty Offense Tonic, Moonshine, More Dalish Tales, More Than Canon-Typical Violence, Owls, Ravens, Sibling Rivalry, Siblings, Skirmisher, The Beyond, Trees, Twins, Whiskey - Freeform, elfy shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-03
Updated: 2015-09-03
Packaged: 2018-04-18 18:58:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4716893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ponchard/pseuds/ponchard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Auntie Lavellan takes a booze break after killing the Highland Ravager. She decides to tell the surviving dragonlings the story of Falon'Din the Fleet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quality Hooch

"Easy, child."

Auntie Lavellan's feet dangled as she sat on the dragon's skull. The elf pulled a hand across her face, smearing bright blue moonshine from cheek to cheek. She raised the bottle before tossing it away, silently toasting the brewer. He hadn't died well, all gurgles and faint gestures. But he made some quality hooch.

"Ah-ah-ah. What did I say?" She hopped down, waving her dagger all the while. " _Behave._ "

Lavellan circled the carcass and squatted behind it, resuming her work. The dragonlings whined and clumped around each other. "Let me tell you a story, little ones. You'll be better for hearing it."

Long ago, when the giants stomped in their caves, Falon'Din boasted to his twin. "Nothing living is quicker than I. Try me and see. With all your secrets, you will find none who can outrun me." He continued on in this manner for many days. Now, Dirthamen loved the Guide, but with time even he grew weary of his posturing. So he pondered and pondered how to silence his brother's prattle.

Finally, he spoke. "I accept your challenge. After searching from hill to shore and sending birds over all the land, I have found a creature quicker than you."

Falon'Din ached to see what marvelous beast his twin had found. "Let me race it and see! Set the goal stone as far or as near as you want, whisper forgotten secrets into its ear. Surely it will need all of your help."

But the Keeper of Secrets smiled. "If only your feet were as quick as your pride. See it first, and then decide if you can challenge it." With that, the twins walked from hill to shore and over all the land. This took hardly any time at all, for Falon'Din carried them both. At last, they returned to the forest.

Falon'Din was not even winded from their journey. "Ha! I knew that even you could find no living thing faster than myself. Admit it, brother."

But Dirthamen smiled still wider. "Calm yourself, soul of my soul. The creature stands before you now. Perhaps it is too quick for you to see?"

The Friend of the Dead looked side to side and turned in all directions. But he saw no running thing, nothing that crawled or flew. Only trees. His brother leaned against one, tapping a knuckle against its trunk.

"I am touching it now, o fleet Lethanavir. Perhaps you only pretend not to see, because you know I have found your rival."

Falon'Din roared with laughter. "Breath of my breath, it takes no secret wisdom to know this poor tree has not moved in all the time we wandered to and fro! This cannot be your challenger."

"Nonetheless, it is what I have chosen. Are you not eager to race it and prove me wrong?"

"Very well," said bold Falon'Din, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes, "though I wish you would not set yourself up for such embarrassment." And he handed the goal stone to his twin. But as soon as the stone was in his hands, Dirthamen called to his ravens, Fear and Deceit. Quietly they conferred, and at last Fear and Deceit plucked the stone from his hand. Up, up, up they flew until they circled above the tree, the stone clutched between their talons!

Falon'Din frowned in great consternation. The trees, though tall, were reed-thin, not fit for climbing. Nor could he ask the birds for help. For the ravens answered to Dirthamen, and the owls answered to no one but sleep. He feared that his brother had outsmarted him, but he would not say so aloud. Dirthamen reclined against a bank of moss, pleased as a fly in brambles.

"Worried, my brother?"

"Not at all. I simply thought to give the tree a head start, so that you may have some joy before its failure." Within himself, his mind whirled from thought to thought, determined not to let his twin get the best of him. For a week he paced around the tree, examining it top to bottom. For another week he slipped into dreams, considering the tree's appearance from the Beyond. In the third week, he sprinkled seeds around the tree, to try to tempt down Fear and Deceit. But his brother's black ravens could not be swayed.

At the start of the fourth week, he began digging around the tree. Soon enough, the hole was large enough to step inside. So the Guide climbed into the hole and enlarged it, descending deeper with each handful of soil. His twin taunted him from the moss. "You insult this noble tree! A head start is one thing, but now you are running in the opposite direction!" But he ignored Dirthamen, and dug still deeper into the loam.

By and by he dug down to the very bottom of the tree's roots. Once there, he curled himself underneath the tree and waited. In time, the soil flowed into his teeth and nose, packed itself into his ears and crept underneath his eyelids. In darkness he waited, grit and mud pressing all around. High above him, the tree reached up toward the stone. Yet, as it grew, it sent tendrils down into the ground, curling into Falon'Din's nails and clutching around his legs. The buds of new growth strained up at the sky, pushing roots down further, further, so far that they pierced Lethanavir's heart. From there they spread, fanning into his body.

With hungry creeping, the roots gathered Falon'Din into the tree, consuming every part of him. Pulling him into the trunk and sending him out to the twigs and leaves. As the tree grew, he unfurled along with each new shoot, straining toward the sky. The branches twisted and stretched, drawing him up, up, up with them. When the tip of the tree touched the ravens' stone, so too did Dirthamen's brother. 

Dirthamen himself smiled to see it. Now within the tree, it would take considerable time for his boastful twin to recover. In the meantime, he would have some blessed silence at last.

"And that is why we tell our children to be humble and quiet, lest they find themselves inside a tree." Crushing her boot into the dragon's leg, Lavellan yanked off the last patch of salvageable skin. In it, she gathered the armor, bones, and wing pieces that she'd hacked off, and tossed the whole bundle over her shoulder. After making a final circuit of the cave, old Auntie Lavellan headed back to camp, leaving the dragonlings huddled around the pile of offal.

**Author's Note:**

> To be clear, "stay quiet or die" is terrible life advice. I expect the Dalish have at least a couple tales that are internalized propaganda. I mean, propaganda aside from "the creators were all lovely and upstanding people".


End file.
